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John Cronan
John Cronan
John Cronan is Alumni Professor of Microbiology and Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He also serves as Head of the Department of Microbiology. Dr. Cronan's research has focused on the biosynthesis and degradation of lipids in bacteria. He pioneered genetic approaches to understanding the mechanisms and regulation of bacterial lipid metabolism and is a leading expert on fatty acid biosynthesis. Dr. Cronan and his group have also studied pathways closely related to lipid metabolism including two-carbon metabolism and the synthesis of cofactors derived from (or essential to) fatty acid biosynthesis. In this latter work they discovered the pathway whereby the key metabolic cofactor, lipoic acid, is synthesized and attached to its cognate proteins and have also made important contributions to understanding the biotin and CoA biosynthetic pathways.
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Dr. Cronan has extensive experience with a variety of host organisms including E. coli, the subject of much of his research. He and his group have authored over 300 research papers and reviews. Dr. Cronan is a member of the American Academy of Microbiology. He has served as a consultant to a wide variety of bioscience, chemical, and pharmaceutical companies. Dr. Cronan received his B.A. in Biology from California State University, Northridge and his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of California, Irvine. Before joining the facility at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, he completed postdoctoral studies in biochemistry at the Washington University School of Medicine and served as Assistant and Associate Professor of Biochemistry at Yale University.